Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Brewster Rockit Conquers the Galaxy!

What do Darth Vader's storm troopers, Audrey Hepburn's little black dress, and (is he a traitor or a hero?) Edward Snowden have in common? Well, they were all reflected in our three favorite Sunday comic strips from "The Washington Post," Mother's Day edition.

In "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," an attack scene reminiscent of "Return of the Jedi" occurs and one of the tank warriors is a student driver. In "Reply All," the title character, a woman in her twenties thanks her mom over an i-Phone for all her fashion tips. And, in "Candorville," an NSA agent spoils a day at the beach.

Other strips from the top ten include Catwoman and Superman meeting for a date in "Rhymes with Orange,"  (there is actually a "Date Lab" column in the Sunday Post as well),"Lio" has an homage to Icarus, the boy who wanted to fly, and  in "Big Nate," the title character finds a way to play inadvertent mischief on the physical education teacher.

 Here is our top ten:

1) "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy"

2) "Reply All"

3) "Candorville"

4) "Lio"

5) "Doonesbury"

6) "Foxtrot"

7) "Dustin"

8) "Knight Life"

9) "Rhymes with Orange"

10) "Big Nate"

http://www.gocomic.com/brewsterrockit

http://www.candorville.com

http://www.rhymeswithorange.com

We Are Postponing the Top 10 Entry (for the moment)

We are going to post our Top Ten list of very long names, but we think Mon., April 25 will be the better time for that as opposed to today since our last entry took as long as reading "War and Peace" would.

Since we knew we would mention Leo Tolstoy's epic 1,225 page novel which perhaps an inmate at the Birmingham, Alabama, city jail on 425 6th Avenue, South, is reading to pass the time, we will point out a few things we learned about the work here.

__ It was originally published in 1869

___Novel begins in 1805 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I and it details the years in which Russia was invaded by Napoleon starting in 1812.

___Made into 1956 Hollywood film with Henry Fonda and Audrey Fonda, as well as the more critically-acclaimed very long (we think it lasts like ten hours) version made in Russia in 1968.

_ "War and Peace" has also been adopted into an opera and stage play.

Elif Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American (I don't know her personally) wrote about her love for Tolstoy and other Russian authors in her recent memoir "The Possessed."

And, in all likelihood University of Virginia professor and author Sina Vaidhyanathan will make our hardest names in the world list. In his latest book "The Googlization of Everything," he states that the small town of Eu, France, actually considered changing its name so that it would not be confused with the EU (European Union) on Google search engines.

As for "War and Peace," one can probably find it at PackBackers (a student bookstore at North Carolina State) and the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.

This weekend is also Independent Record Store Weekend, and if one is in Athens, Georgia, they may want to visit Wuxtry Records where I found a rare cd from the late German New Wave pop artist Klaus Nomi when I was visited the town two weeks ago.

Quote of the Day- Audrey Hepburn

She is best known for her role in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," yet she won an Oscar for her earlier performance in "Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck.

We are quoting Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) in our series of 32 quotes from 32 people associated with the 32 countries in the World Cup.

I must profess that with Hepburn we are sort of 'cheating' as she was born in Belgium, but she spent most of her adult life in Switzerland. Since the Swiss, who shocked Spain 1-0, are in the World Cup and Tintinland is not, we are posting Hepburn's quote for Switzerland.

Many Americans are surprised to learn that one of the nicest hotels in Istanbul, Turkey, is actually Swissotel, an international chain which also has hotels in Chicago (but presumably nowhere else in les etats unis, Berlin, Beijing, Lima (Peru) and (of course) Geneva. They also have two other hotels in Turkey in Ankara and Izmir.

The Swissotel in Istanbul overlooks the Bosporus and it also reportedly has a very, very nice spa.

As for the World Cup, in today's action, our American boys came from behind to tie Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic which Sarah Palin probably thinks is in West Africa somewhere near Ghana (they are also in the World Cup).

The Slovenian goals came from Valter Birsa (25th min.) and Zlatan Ljubijankic (and, people think my Turkish last name is hard to spell!). While the American goals came from superstar Landon Donovan (48th min.) and Michael Bradley (82nd min.); there was also an American goal which was called back by referee Koman Coulibay from Mali (who coincidentally turns 40 on the Fourth of July).

Coulibay's Wikipedia page was hacked in response to the highly-controversial call sometime today. This of course makes me wonder if some kid from Skokie, Ill., (a Chicago suburb) or Bethesda, Md. (a DC 'burb), has to much time on his hands!

Oh, before I forget, here is our quote from Hepburn, who was also known for her charity work in places like Africa (perhaps she went to Ghana and Mali!):

"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it."